Katarungan sa Pilipinas/Justice in The Philippines art contest

I made a komiks illustration making contest December last year as part of the Blog Entrepeneurship course from DigitalFilipino and ADMU. I wanted to make a project that would immediately and clearly benefit komiks people. 6WPG4EMHG4PE

the final winning image by Andoyman Komikero

Unfortunately, time constraints did not allow me to properly promote the contest. I did not give sufficient time for people to prepare and submit entries as well. As a result, few people were able to participate, so I consider it fortuitous that we were able to push through with it.

The contest launch and initial rules can be found here. Basically, I gave komiks people free rein to make whatever komiks they wanted. Before the end of the 1st week, I had received no entries, and asked around to find out the contest was launched just when everyone was rushing work to end the year.

I changed the rules to a spot illustration contest, with specific instructions to illustrate thus: You will be illustrating a man in a small dark prison cell. The man is looking upward at a far away window, where a bird is coming in. The prisoner's face will be covered in shadow, but you will be labeling him 'Justice.' You can write Justice on his shirt, or have a floating ribbon with words Justice around him. 


Below the illustration, we will include a quote from Hubert Webb, when asked how he had felt, given events of ten years ago and today - "Why is this happening to me?" If you can letter this in yourself, it will be a huge bonus!


I came to regret naming Hubert Webb, although personally I felt he was wrongly jailed and continue to do so.  The contest was ongoing when Hubert and his co-accused were acquitted, and so I immediately received inquiries if the contest was politically motivated. I did want to take risks when choosing my topic, but it had the unintended consequence of alienating some prospective contestants. 


As noted in the actual blog post I did write, we continue to look for justice in the Philippines, but I feel that case is illustrative of what we do in search for it. Ultimately, I haven't been put off from entering controversial topics, but do want to set up more inclusive activities for this blog and the komiks people in the future.


Now, let's get to the illustrations:

This illustration by Bob Melendres, who isn't active making komiks now, but is a friend of a friend.

This illustration is by Ernest John Daryll Fiestan of Crazy Metro Comics. He has recently said he plans to publish some actual komiks to him soon! More power, Ernest :)

Finally, the winner is Andoyman of Andoyman Komikero! Digital Filipino head and project sponsor Janette Toral met Andoyman last week. This is a black and white version of the image I used last blog post. Original sketch is below.

Thanks to Janette Toral for all the support, Jonas Diego for helping with judging, all the contestants for joining and again, congratulations to Andoyman! I hope to setup a more open, more reasonably run contest soon. No politics for the next one, I promise!